


this is the way, this is the way,

by brawlite



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: I am very sorry, M/M, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited, Weddings, clint has wonderful friends, more tags as more chapters come, sort of unrequited, weird formatting?? i'm not sure how i feel about it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlite/pseuds/brawlite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson gets married -- not to Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

(this is the way)

(the world ends)

It’s not with a bang, nor a whimper. The lights do not blink out, fluttering, as he careens himself off a building, nor does he fade into the familiar icy cocoon of void that had come with Loki and his staff. There is no explosion of debris, no bite of shrapnel digging itself into warm, yielding flesh. He knows the burn of poison, and this numbness creeping into his limbs is nothing at all like that. This is not what he planned for; this is not what he _wanted_.

The world ends on a Tuesday.

     -- _His_ world, 

                ends.

That’s arguably the worst part, really-- that the world, as a whole, keeps on turning around him, like nothing happened at all. 

* * *

“Have you checked your mail?”

And that one’s the funny part: that he never checks his mail. Sure, there are probably rent checks in there, so outdated the bank would reject them immediately and send him a fine instead for even trying. But he doesn’t cash them, and none of his tenants mention it, so --. They go untouched, unrealized, uncashed. It’s not like he needs the money; he’s got months and months and months of income sitting in savings accounts that he barely ever touches.. Some portfolio officer in SHIELD had been insistent he set up a 401K, so that’s just ticking along too, collecting interest and kicking ass and taking names along the way.

He never checks his mail. On Mondays, on Fridays, when Kate comes over and puts her feet up onto his couch ( _Don’t make that face. It’s not_ that _nice, Barton),_ she brings the mail in with her. Sometimes stacks of it, sometimes a couple letters. Clint sometimes stops to wonder if she throws most of it out on the shorter days, before making her way up the stairs, but then always decides he doesn’t care either way. If it was something important, Kate wouldn’t toss it. He trusts her like that, with that.

It has turned into something that might qualify as modern artwork on his kitchen counter: stacks and stacks and stacks of papers he hasn’t bothered to touch, magazines he hasn’t thought to read. It’s a surprise that his magazine spread makes him look fairly normal: _Dog Fancy_ (he’s pretty sure that’s Kate’s doing), _Cosmopolitan_ (he opened that once to find it’s all in Russian), _Bon Appetit_ , and _Better Homes and Gardens_ (the last two, failed attempts by Kate to better Clint as a homeowner and probably as a person, too). He gets others, too -- shoved in his box (by residents, he figures), usually with dog-eared pages to articles he might find interesting. On occasion, he’ll actually touch those, unable to turn away from personal notes from people who matter to him, even on the periphery. The magazine stack is tall -- so is the one full of newspapers, cross-stacked like Lincoln-Logs in the middle of everything. The pile full of personal letters isn’t bad, it’s probably actually manageable, but it’s all mostly checks, anyway. And Clint’s not so strapped for cash that he can’t get away with ignoring it.

So, when Coulson calls him for the first time in months --

          (because coulson is _alive. he’s_ ** _alive_**. 

                                               a l i v e 

          he’s alive, 

                          and clint can finally breathe again)

\-- and asks, with a smile in his voice, if he’s checked his mail, the obvious answer is to laugh, and ask “What mail?” Like old times. Like nothing ever happened, like no one ever _died,_ stopped breathing -- no brain function. So he does, grateful for the throwback, the distraction. For a wonderful, blissful moment, it’s like nothing ever happened. They can laugh and joke and nothing’s even changed, why would Clint have ever thought any differently?

 He’s still laughing, when his hands find a beige ( _ivory, egg-shell, tan, linen?_ ) envelope, tucked at the bottom of the stack of rent checks, addressed to one _Mr. Clinton Francis Barton_ in unfamiliar handwriting. It’s -- it’s the shape. The size. The weight. He doesn’t need to open it to know what it is. He’s held enough of these envelopes in mission-briefings, ever forged, getting fake-fingerprints all over them, to know what it is. Without doubt.

He’s supposed to -- supposed to say something. And it feels like forever until he can, until he can get his vocal chords to warm up from the icy trap they’ve frozen into.

By now, the laughter has died from his throat and that moment of warmth feels miles and miles away. “Congratulations?” That’s what you’re supposed to say, right? 

The conversation must turn at that point, shift into pleasantries or mundane talk about upcoming nuptials, but Clint doesn’t remember it minutes later. He can’t recall anything other than the buzz of static in his ear, the way his heart still can’t stop hammering in his chest. It was like his first free-fall as a rookie all over again, before he found the reassuring beat of Coulson’s voice in his ear to steady him. For the first time in his life, his handler’s (ex-handler, now) voice had done nothing to tether him, to ease the anxiety burning in his veins. 

The static, ringing in his ears, doesn’t fade away. Instead, it climbs steadily upwards into a dull roar.

* * *

Later, when he’s shoved into forced wakefulness by the cold nose of a hungry (and worried) dog, he’s shocked (not shocked at all) to find that hours have passed, slipped through his fingers with the ease of a nocked arrow flying effortlessly from his bow. Hours, and he’d been sitting on the floor of his kitchen, torn envelope in hand, staring at the poor excuse for carpentry that are his kitchen cabinets. He should really think about replacing them. He gets splinters every time he goes for the waffle maker,

The dog, to his credit, doesn’t leave Clint alone for the rest of the evening, save for the two minutes it takes him to scarf down his dog food. Barton can’t even be upset about the general sort of emotional-perceptiveness ( _that’s what they_ do, _Clint,_ _that’s what animals are great for,_ Kate had told him) because while Lucky’s nosing at his hand every three seconds and shoving his face into Clint’s armpit, he’s too distracted to even think about the wedding. Or how stupidly broken up over it he is.

* * *

The next day, Wednesday --

          even though the previous day felt like lifetimes ago

                 a g e s, actually,

          (the world ended on a tuesday)

 -- brings Kate with coffee and a selection of unpronounceable pastries, because Kate cannot leave tiny stores with even tinier baked goods alone. Kate, despite not being a house pet, has goddamn _emotional-perceptiveness_ anyway _,_ and immediately zeroes in on the circles under his eyes and the way his shoulders are hunched. He follows the path of her eyes, takes in her little _hmm’_ s and _oh’_ s, and just throws the invitation at her, preempting any sort of discussion. 

The paper’s worn, crumpled from being clenched in his sweaty fist for too long -- but it’s unmistakable, and Clint knows that Kate knows what it is immediately when she lays eyes on it. But, to her credit, there’s no cooing or hugging or apologies made, just an, “Aw, Hawkeye. That sucks.” It’s perfect, or as close as anything can be right now, and he’s not sure why he ever thought she would be anything less. 

Then it’s scones and coffee and handfuls of tiny gourmet donuts that cannot possibly be good for you with how much _awesome_ they’re filled with, and Clint realizes it’s been a while since he’s eaten. Because Katie Kate’s great that way, always knowing what he needs. She even sticks around for Thai delivery.

_“I can’t. That’s --”_

_“You can’t cut everything that reminds you of him out of your life, Barton.”_

_“I know, Katie, but --”_

_“No. You’ve known him too long. You wouldn’t be left with anything for_ ** _you_.** ”

It’s good Thai. It’s not the wonderful, mouth-watering food he ate from a cozy little place on the outskirts of Bangkok with Coulson on a warm and breezy night back in ‘03, but it’s solidly _good_. It’s not like Coulson ever went to _this_ place with Clint, anyway. It’s not like Clint offered, either. So Coulson never stood him up and Clint never had the balls to make that gesture after Coulson came back from the dead. So, _so_. This is _his_ place. And he and Kate eat their weight in spring rolls in an effort to reclaim it.

Kate’s got perfect aim, every time.

* * *

A couple days later, he comes home to two former Russian assassins, stretched out on his couch, so close to and wrapped around each other they look like they’re in knots, two parts of one whole. They’re both reading Cosmo and drinking tea. Clint doesn’t even _own_ tea.

But he now understands the Cosmopolitans that keep coming every month, always in Russian. He’s not sure he ever thought to question it, because it’s not like he can’t read them himself, as he knows enough Russian to get by. It’s probably the terrible “sex tips” that deter him more than anything, even the cyrillic -- but then again, he hasn’t actually tried to read one in a long time, so. Maybe he was hugely missing out. 

Turns out, “Did you know that pizza is one of 11 Seemingly Unhealthy Foods That Aren’t So Bad For You,” Natasha informs him with a smile, which of course, sparks the three of them ordering a hell of a lot of pizza with enough toppings to certainly negate any health benefits of the cheesy bread. 

Lucky lucks out too, sneaking food from Barnes who seems more than happy to occasionally “drop” his last few bites of each piece of pie he goes through. “I see you there, buddy -- you’re a goddamn professional sniper, I know you don’t have butterfingers. Stop that, don’t make my dog fat.” The dog, however, decides he _loves_ Barnes, no matter how many angry faces Clint makes in his direction, and worms his way into James’ lap for the rest of the night. _Traitor_ , Clint mouths, as he runs a palm over Lucky’s head, but he feels warmer, overall. 


	2. Chapter 2

 

The first couple days aren’t terrible. They’re -- exactly what he expected, really. Sure, his head still goes all fuzzy and his chest gets tight whenever he thinks about that stupid envelope, but that’s the pain of having an open wound. He’s _used_ to that, even if he wasn’t prepared for the immediacy of it. He’s not, however, used to the pain _not_ fading, and he keeps waiting for it to become a dull ache instead of a sharp, gut-wrenching stab. He figured the shock value of it would ease rather sublimely into apathy -- but boy, was he wrong.

It’s not -- even like he should care, he tells himself.

       though that’s _total_ bullshit

                  (and he knows it)

He’s been dancing around Coulson his entire life. The man was his anchor, his tether, his goddamn North star. He -- was just a constant. Sometimes, Clint feels a little bit like his life didn’t _really_ start until he’d met Coulson. The agent had brought Clint in from the streets (a prison cell, actually) and offered him equal measures of both guidance and respect. He listened to Clint when other handlers wouldn’t, and trusted his judgement even when Coulson’s life was what was hanging in the balance. And Clint _never_ let him down, not once. Even when they brought in Natasha, which had been a fucking complicated maneuver, navigating _that_ red tape. That op had involved exceptional levels of trust from both parties -- and that absolute _trust_ was what ended up intriguing Romanoff enough for her to actually hear SHIELD’s (Clint’s) spiel. He’d had to lie afterwards, say he was acting independently of his own actions, and Coulson took the rap for Clint not taking down a target, but both of them got commendations in the end for bringing in one of SHIELD’s Most Wanted. 

They grew into and around each other. Clint let his roots build and thrive around his handler, settling into himself as a professional, just as Coulson steadily and resolutely worked his way up the ranks in SHIELD. They leaned on each other, supported one another -- and Clint’s pretty damn sure, even to this day, that they each wouldn’t have been able to do it alone. 

But that was it. They were partners first and friends second. And that was fine. The Job came first for Coulson and Clint respected that. He might not have understood it, especially back in his rookie days, but he did fucking respect it, in the same way that Coulson respected all of Clint’s life decisions, no matter how dubious or childish. 

So, when one day, Clint had looked at his handler over a morning cup of coffee in Coulson’s tiny office, each of them settled down to do paperwork until a mission-briefing, and his heart fluttered a little bit -- he didn’t do anything about it. He paused, acknowledged the feeling for what it was (a crush, that was all), pushed the fluttering back, and moved on with his life. When it happened again, a few years later in a larger, windowed office, he ignored that too -- figured it was still a crush, fueled by admiration and gratitude. When it _kept happening_ , he realized it for the problem it was. 

Years and years and years of that feeling, deep in his chest: he’d gotten used to it. Accepted it for the malignancy it was. It had grown tendrils and taken up residence inside his ribcage -- prompting warmth and a familiar pounding of his heart every time he was the recipient of one of Coulson’s secret smiles. It was -- inconvenient. But he dealt with it. Kept pushing it back, hacking away at it in hopes to saw it off a the roots, even though he _knew_ it’d never happen. And, after a while, he’d simply accepted it as a fact of his life. Clint Barton, Hawkeye, _World’s Best Marksman_ , was in love with Philip J. Coulson, agent of SHIELD, and that was simply that.  

The feeling wasn’t reciprocated and that was fine. Agent Coulson, for the first eight years Clint knew him, didn’t date. He devoted all of his time to his work, and Clint benefited, given that he was part of that work. Once Coulson was firmly settled in a position he found comfortable, he had surprised Clint by actually starting to date one day out of the blue. It was never anything serious -- small relationships that never lasted longer than a few months, but were never anything like Clint’s occasional fuckbuddies or one-night-stands (one of those dubious life-decisions that Coulson never seemed to judge him for). And that -- was alright. It was what it was, really, and Clint was practically a master at accepting what life handed him, even if it wasn’t what he wanted. He _had_ Coulson, and in the end it didn’t matter much what capacity that was. They were always women -- smart and gorgeous, and the ones that Clint had met ( _Your opinion matters to me, Barton,)_ had all been practically perfect. But they had never lasted, and that was perhaps what made it all bearable. 

Or -- 

They never lasted until Coulson met the Cellist.  

Audrey was -- she was perfect. _More_ perfect than any of the other women Coulson had dated. And when Coulson had introduced them, a sick weight settled in Clint’s gut. He found it hard to be nice, to fake his excitement to _finally meet_ her -- _I’ve heard so much about you, all good things, I promise._ It wasn’t that she wasn’t nice, pleasant, intelligent, talented, and gorgeous: it was that she was well and truly _all_ of those things. She was everything that Coulson was looking for and _more_. And Clint _knew._

That night, Clint had gotten plastered out of his mind, leaning on Natasha on the streets of Portland until sunrise. It was what he needed: his inherent imbalance countered by her careful and absolute stability. Somewhere between emptying out his guts into a gutter and carefully tucking into greasy diner food at dawn, he’d decided he was done. 

_Done._

It wasn’t fair. Not to Coulson, and not to himself.

Natasha had simply nodded, told him that she understood, and had taken a sip of cheap diner tea. Everything was brighter, after that.

Obviously, he hadn’t been done, not then and not ever. But it had helped, telling himself that. It made being around Coulson and Audrey palatable. It made Coulson marking anniversaries on his calendar (subtly, with a little line under the date) seem less like dead weights around his ankles, dragging him under. It was fine. 

When Coulson had come back to life --

       (clint resolutely does not

**c a n n o t**

****think about coulson _dying_. 

       those years he was dead and gone and clint felt untethered and lost -- 

                       he doesn’t think about it.)

\-- and he told Clint he wanted Audrey not to know, _Please don’t tell her,_ _Barton, she’s moved on,_ Clint had tried not to feel so _relieved_. 

Maybe, he should have tried harder.  

Because evidently Clint had stopped paying attention. Sure, he and Coulson didn’t talk as much as they used to, but that was pretty par for the course. A hell of a lot of things happened in rather quick succession, and then suddenly Coulson was holed up somewhere, trying to rebuild the remnants of SHEILD. They didn’t talk much, and that was alright; it was expected. Why talk, when there’s not much to say? Clint was still coping, rebuilding his life and his trust in himself, and he was _busy._ The Avengers took up a lot of time, even if they weren’t actively _Avenging_ anything. Press conferences, galas, general Avenger-wrangling: it left Clint with a pretty full plate. So, when he and Coulson only tossed a few texts back and forth to each other every month, he didn’t think much of it. Didn’t think he’d be actively missing anything important happening.

_Turns out --_

Anyway. It’s not like he should care, he tells himself -- even though he does.

It’s the fact that he _does_ care that leads him to curling up on his couch, drinking cold coffee like water, and putting his face against Lucky’s furry side. He lets himself (a couple times, because no one’s home to judge him) make a kind of whining noise into that soft fur, because he knows the dog won’t judge him. Of course, that doesn’t do much to make Clint feel any better, and does do a hell of a lot to suddenly spark Lucky into worry. _Dog-empathy_ , or something. 

The dog, over the course of the evening, brings Clint no less than five of Lucky’s favorite toys, one pillow and two blankets (all well-chewed and well-loved), but it’s really the thought that counts. By the time Kate lets herself in (unannounced and unexpected), Clint’s watching terrible tv and spooning with the dog in a mess of Lucky’s feel-better gifts. 

“Wow, you need to stop sulking. You’re like the poster child for terrible break-up depression.” She comes over and nudges him until there’s enough space for her to sit on the couch too. “You know what you didn’t do, buddy? Get dumped.” But there’s compassion there in Katie’s voice, when she asks if he’s showered, eaten, or left the house (no, to all of those). He gets a sigh, but no admonishment. 

The prospect of going on a midnight run with her actually rouses Clint from the couch. “I never told him. Anything, I mean. I could’ve, but I didn’t.” The words get lost in the sweatshirt he pulls over his head, but he’s ever grateful for the distraction of the movement. “He never knew.”

* * *

 They run in silence for minutes until Kate breaks the silence. “Well, are you going to go?” He trips over his own feet, stumbling his way along the street, Kate keeping pace beside him. Steady.

And that’s -- that’s not even something Clint had _thought_ about. 

Futz.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Natasha doesn’t drink coffee when she’s not on a mission. It’s a disagreement they’ve always had: Clint trying to wordlessly push her coffee in the mornings before he’s fully functioning, trying to argue with lazy gestures and even lazier sign language that it’s just _better_ than tea. It’s not that she doesn’t understand the gestures or the sign language (she understands both, no matter how lazy or poorly executed), but it’s a stance she apparently refuses to give on. Which is _fine_ , but it also means that Clint feels obligated to make her tea whenever she comes over in the mornings. Because he is a good host and she is a good friend. If she were to switch to coffee, it’d be _easy --_ job already done, because he almost always has coffee, even if it needs a quick trip to the microwave.

But no, Nat has to be complicated. Like every other woman in his life. No, scratch that. Like -- every other _person_ in his life, actually, gender notwithstanding. It’s apparently just a prerequisite to knowing him.

       ❏ _complicated_

       ❏ _out to make clint barton’s life way weirder than it already is_

       ❏ _bonus if complications are inconsistent and untrackable_

“Earl Grey, chamomile, or mint?” He can feel the vibrations of his own voice echo around him in the cabinet, his face all the way inside the wooden box. It smells like pine and mint -- which is pretty great, but coffee is still better. Apparently, Natasha had, at some point, reclaimed one of the cupboards in his kitchen as her own, and that’s what he’s currently exploring.  

She doesn’t even look up from her perusing of her magazine. “Orange ginger green. It’s in the back.”

“Oh, the back.” He grumbles, stacking boxes and pushing stray tea tins and boxes aside to dig for _orange ginger green_.

“ _In the back,_ she says,” like it’s her kitchen and not _his._ But that doesn’t stop him from finding it and making her a damn fine cup of tea, if he does say so himself. Once they’re both sitting on the couch, hands around their respective warm beverages, he wedges his toes under her thigh. Because his feet are cold and not because he needs the human-contact. 

Natasha, because she doesn’t believe in sugar coating anything or softening blows, just levels him with a look. “I had lunch with Kate yesterday.”

“Neat. Where’d you go?” He knows where Natasha is heading, but he delays it anyway. Because he always prefers to slowly inch band-aids off opposed to just tearing them, except when it comes to _actual_ bandages. Those, he’d prefer to just rip clean off with no preamble.

“ _Saraghina_.” Romanoff’s tongue can make any word in any accent sound fluent and beautiful, even a mouthful of curses. Clint has no idea if the name of the restaurant is even a word, much less what language it’s in, but it sounds like a place he wants to go when she says it.. “The garden in the back is lovely, I recommend their paninis.” 

“Yeah? That’s neat. Their pizza good? I heard it was.”

She just smiles, a small and perfect tilt to the corner of her mouth, when he wriggles his toes deeper under her thigh. Indulges him the littlest bit. “Very.”

The ominous weight dangles above his head, precariously, no matter how little he has to lose at this point --

      ( _he has nothing -- nothing left to lose)._  

“Oh?” He can feel the coffee getting more bitter in his mouth as the seconds tick down. He swallows. Takes another sip. 

Natasha just hums into her coffee as Lucky forces his way between the two of them. The dog settles between Clint’s legs and the couch, a reassuring warmth and a steady pressure. His de-railing conversation with Kate echoes in his head, even left as unfinished as it had been. He _had_ been ignoring it. It was a particular talent of Clint’s to ignore problems until they went away (it worked, sometimes). And his solution, honestly, had been the exact same with this -- whole _thing._ He had been planning to simply ignore everything until it went away. _Perfect_.

Unfortunately, Natasha knows him better than that. “She seemed to think you were planning on forgetting the wedding.” Well. That’s -- _ugh_. Evidently, Natasha _and_ Kate both know him better than that.

A groan. “Can’t I?”

Natasha runs a hand carefully over Lucky’s head, once. The movement is precise and gentle, and with it it would be easy to tell that she is a cat owner, if Clint wasn’t already well aware. After all, he gets to cat-sit when she’s away.

“Not really, no.” She finishes her tea and stretches fluidly to set the mug on the coffee-table where it can sit amongst empty beer-bottles. He isn’t sure when he last ate, but he definitely had enough calories in beer last night to make up for any missed-meals. That was how that worked, right? Natasha just levels him with a look: “He’s your best friend. You can’t forget his wedding.”

Clint frowns. “Okay, no. That’s not fair. _You’re_ my best friend.” But, Natasha’s glare gets him to keep talking, to elaborate, “Fine. I mean, he _was_. I guess. But he -- I -- we don’t talk that much anymore, really. He’s been busy with his whole,” he waves his hand in the air, trying to encompass the rebuilding of SHIELD with one singular gesture, “-- thing. And I’ve been busy too. With...life.” He pats Lucky, and adds, for good measure, “And a dog.”

“There was a time he would have asked you to be best man.”

And that, right there -- that stings. Because while Clint was acutely aware of that as a possibility, it had never particularly solidified as fact in his head. Sure, Coulson _could_ have chosen him to be best man at his hypothetical wedding, but he also could have chosen Fury. Or Hill. Or Sitwell. But -- two of those people are dead and one of them is currently pushing papers for Stark (or something probably much more deadly -- Clint doesn’t keep up), so --.

“Who _is_ his best man?” The question slips from his mouth before he can really think about it. Futz.

Natasha probably feels like she won something from that, knowing her. And she did, kinda. “I think they’re ‘ _forgoing tradition_ ’, from what he’s said. Just the two of them and an officiant. The important people will be in attendance.” He gets another _look_ , but that doesn’t mean he’ll be there. Natasha and Kate and anyone else, including Coulson himself, can pester him all he likes, but he’s pretty sure that he has no real plans of attending.

     the thought, 

         of standing there

         watching coulson and audrey hold hands and connect 

         & promise their _lives,_ their everything, to one another --

     --

     yeah, _no_. 

He’s definitely not attending. 

Natasha lets it drop, if only because Clint probably looks more pained than he should by any right. This isn’t his tragedy. It was just a stupid crush that escalated, that turned from infatuation to something far more damaging and debilitating. It was childish and _wrong_ \-- he knew that from the very beginning. Coulson was never anything but good to Barton, and _this_ was how Clint repaid him? Yeah, no. He was going to _ignore_ it and it was going to go _away_ and then, maybe sometime after Coulson and Audrey got married, he’d stop by for coffee and wish them the very best.

But now? He couldn’t face Coulson. Not like this.

Natasha leaves after depositing some sort of food in front of him. Stew, maybe. Or goulash. He doesn’t actually know what goulash is, but he’s also sure it’s the kind of thing Nat could probably pull out of thin air.Still, he has no idea where it came from -- he could’ve sworn his cupboards were empty save for coffee, tea (apparently lots of it), and dog food. Comfortingly enough, it smells nothing like any of those things. Once he’s done (he does eat it, if only because it’s something to do, and Natasha unspokenly _told_ him to), he goes to put the bowl in the sink. Under it, is a little scrap of paper.

All it says, in Natasha’s perfect handwriting, is: 

_Consider it._

* * *

When Clint comes in from walking Lucky around the neighborhood the next day, there is a Russian sitting on his couch casually reading Cosmopolitan -- and it’s not Natasha. 

“Uh, hi?”

Lucky has zero of the same reservations as Clint, and instead of offering an awkward greeting, he: bounds over to the couch, enthusiastically throws himself onto the ex-assassin’s lap, and slobbers all over his face. Clint can only mumble an,“Aw, dog --” in response.

Barnes just smiles, or probably tries to. He still looks a little pained and like he’s trying too hard, but it’s a work in progress. They all are, anyway, so it’s nothing Clint would ever hold against him. “No, no it’s fine. He’s a good dog.” And James is occupied with greeting a dog for a while, so Clint makes coffee, because that’s what he’s good at and he has no idea what else to do. Barton has normalized to a lot of strange things --

  * bi-weekly alien attacks on manhattan island
  * the ability to borrow tony stark’s various and sundry expensive cars
  * free-falling off national monuments with faith that he will be caught by a flying norse god
  * having small children and grown adults ask him for autographs everytime he buys groceries
  * running (sometimes literally) into versions of himself every halloween



 -- but there are apparently still some things that take him by surprise. One of those is coming into his apartment and finding the Winter Soldier relaxing on his couch with not a Natasha Romanoff in sight. 

Clint feels thrown for a loop. 

Barnes just smiles.

The goddamn Winter Soldier procures a treat (is that one of _Clint’s_ doggie treats??) from his pocket and Lucky happily goes to town on his fist, all gentle teeth and playful slobber. “Morning, Barton.” And the stare of another sniper should never be so off-putting. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” They’re not really friends -- not like that, anyway. They’re friends-by-association. They’re both close to Natasha and they get along because of it, but the Black Widow has always been the buffer between them. In the field they work just fine -- two snipers on opposite sides of a situation, working for a common goal. They coordinate on the comms, occasionally bicker back and forth, but once they’re out of the situation, they’re back to people who share a good friend and that’s it. And honestly, that relationship had been working just fine for Clint up until now.

It’s not exactly a _smirk_ that Barnes gives him, but it’s close enough for government work. “I dropped by to see the dog. You were out.”

And that’s -- even if it’s a lie, it’s more comforting than thinking that Natasha or Kate has Barnes spying on him covertly. Or overtly, he’s not even sure, considering the man is curled up on the couch with Clint’s dog. He doesn’t know what to say, but a quick visual inventory of the situation has him talking anyway, “Are you wearing an Iron Man shirt?” The blue symbol in the middle of the shirt is less garish than some of the gold and red versions he’s seen, but it’s still pretty obvious. 

The Russian cringes, looking down and making a face at his own wardrobe choices. “It’s Stark’s idea of a joke, apparently. It was either this or a Captain America shirt, and --” He makes another face and then just shrugs. “Lesser of two evils.”

_Lesser of two evils_ isn’t exactly the first thing Clint thought would come out of James Barnes mouth in relation to Tony Stark vs. Steve Rogers, but who is he to read too much into that? He finds himself settling into a chair adjacent to Barnes, curling his legs over the side, coffee balanced precariously (but expertly) on his knee. “You need to go shopping.” It’s probably the most obvious thing Clint’s ever said, and also the most useless. He can practically hear Katie Kate in his head: _yes, the man_ obviously _needs to go shopping, thanks Hawkeye_. _Well spotted._

That sparks a bark of a laugh out of Barnes, and from the look on the man’s face, he expected it about as much as Barton -- which is to say: not at all. “Every time I try, the shirts I order end up with something stupid on them. Last time, they said, ‘ _If lost, please return to Steve Rogers,’_ punctuated with a shield. That was ten shirts, all with the same thing.” He just shrugs, “Honestly, I prefer the touristy fan shirts over that.” Barnes thumbs at the fake glow of the arc reactor on his shirt before he continues again. “And this glows in the dark.” 

“I can’t argue glow in the dark anything.” It’s easy, surprisingly so, just sitting there curled up in a chair and half-talking to a man he doesn’t _really_ know. The pauses between words are also surprisingly easy. Comforting, almost. He waits for a few minutes before breaking the silence again: “There’s coffee if you want it. In the kitchen.”

Clint watches as Barnes puts his forehead against Lucky’s head and breathes for a couple seconds. It’s the most relaxed he’s seen the other man since he walked in. “Yeah, alright. In a little while.”

Simple.

Easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _saraghina _, the restaurant natasha tells clint about, is a small pizza place in bed-stuy on halsey st., that also has a coffee bar. it looks adorable & has great reviews. you should go and tell me how it is.__

**Author's Note:**

> i blame [mercuryalice](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryAlice/pseuds/MercuryAlice) who mentioned the idea.
> 
> please don't let me stop writing this. this is everything i live and breathe for.
> 
> title from the hollow men by t.s. eliot.


End file.
